Grissom in Wonderland
by doomcherries
Summary: He knew what Alice must have felt like following the rabbit down the rabbit hole. Minor spoilers for LD.


Disclaimer: I own nothing but the thoughts and ideas running around my head.

Written for the GeekFiction Summer Reading Ficacthon Challenge. My prompt was Lewis Carroll.

Minor spoilers for LD. Otherwise general spoilers throughout all seven seasons.

Huge thanks to **mingsmommy **for doing the beta on such short notice!

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If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.

-- Lewis Carroll

Sometimes he thought of their relationship as an intimate game of chess. Each piece was moving towards the other side in hopes of trumping and conquering its opposite and avoiding getting caught 'in check'. The game had been going on for more than thirteen years, their pieces dancing around each other, both wary of being captured and succumbing to their deepest desires. But little did the white player know, she already captured all the pieces of his heart; he was forever held 'in check' by…well, just her.

Never in his life did he think he could love someone as much as he loved Sara. To others it may sound cliché, but he could feel it whenever he looked at her. For nearly thirty-nine years, he had lived a life of solitude, and that suited him just fine—until she walked into his summer seminar with her toothy grin. Suddenly, the idea of a companion other than his pet tarantula didn't seem so foreign.

_…I left my heart in San Francisco._

Looking up at the generic wall clock that hung off the stark waiting room walls, he sighed. He sighed and continued waiting. Waiting for…well, anything. _With as many white-coated doctors running about the damn place, you'd think someone would know something._ But they didn't. So, he shifted uncomfortably on the hard green couch, the plastic material squeaking at his movements and continued to wait, quickly becoming consumed with his own thoughts shutting out the incessant drone of doctors being paged and nurses running about.

Nothing felt real, nothing involving her never felt real. She was the one entity, the one being, the one irreplaceable woman who had entered his life and turned the world upside down. With her bright smile and passion for knowledge, Sara Sidle pushed him off center and sent him into a freefall thirteen years ago. He knew what Alice must have felt like following the rabbit down the rabbit hole; Sara was the white rabbit and he followed her to a place of uncertainty.

Nothing that good could be real.

But she was.

Oh, was she real. Wonderfully, unbelievably, mind-blowingly real. Never in his wildest dreams could he imagine someone like her wanting to be with him, Gil Grissom, entomologist extraordinaire.

Eight years. She'd been in Vegas, in his life in varying degrees, for eight years. And for nearly six of those years, he was a stupid, stupid man. A fool. Time and time again, he'd play with her emotions—led her on, push her away; sometimes he really was an asshole. But he fooled himself into thinking it was for the best.

She deserved something better. He didn't deserve her at all. He never did. Not even now after more than two years as lovers.

He stared at the checker-patterned tile that made up the floor. He could almost see the chess pieces in their respectful places; his king held forever by her queen.

She scared him. Still did. She was capable of evoking emotions and feelings that left him powerless. The moment she brushed the chalk from his cheek, he knew he would lose their game. Well, he knew before that, but now it was a moot point.Instead of slowing down his heart, she had managed to raise it far above the ninety he was worried about. He wasn't sure if it ever came down.

Albert Einstein said it best. "_Chess grips its exponent, shackling the mind and brain so that the inner freedom and independence of even the strongest character cannot remain unaffected."_

Oh, he was affected all right. Albert Einstein, in all his genius glory, didn't know the half of it. Then again, for most of their relationship, in any definition of the word, Grissom didn't know either. He spoke out of turn, words falling from his mouth he thought he'd only said in his head.

Since I met you… 

His emotions were so scrambled; he turned her down for dinner thinking it was the best for the both of them. Otosclerosis wasn't an easy diagnosis to hear even knowing it was likely to happen and she had nearly been blown up in the lab explosion. Neither of them was thinking clearly.

But he was a stupid man. Or maybe he was crazy. Mad as a hatter.

Pulling his glance from the floor, Grissom looked up and saw Catherine standing in the waiting room entrance. She attempted a smile and slowly started to walk over to where he sat. Sitting down next to him, she watched as he blew out a sigh and hung his head.

"Any news?" she asked softly.

He shook his head. "No."

"She'll be okay, Gil. Sara's a fighter; she's been through worst things."

Grissom lifted his head and looked at the woman next to him. "It's more than just her life on the line."

Catherine simply nodded, unsure if words could any longer comfort him. He seemed more relaxed than he did two hours ago when he rushed to the hospital, but Grissom was always a difficult man to read.

While her presence was comforting, he was glad she decided to remain quiet. He was having a hard enough time as it was listening to his own thoughts.

Grissom could only claim loving, truly loving, two people throughout his life: his mother and Sara. And the love he knew for Sara he always felt. He just did a poor job at showing it. Even now, fear gripped him at moments when he expressed himself.

He confessed once, to a suspected murderer, that he couldn't start a relationship with Sara. The words he spoke stuck in his memory like a bad dream you can't shake yourself of. For months whenever he looked at her, he heard himself in his head.

"_We wake up one day and realize that for fifty years we haven't really lived at all. But then, all of a sudden, we get a second chance. Somebody young and beautiful shows up. Somebody we could care about. She offers us a new life with her, but we have a big decision to make, right? Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her. I couldn't do it…"_

He was a VERY stupid man.

Sometimes even now, when he looked at her Grissom could hear those words and realize how close he was to throwing away the one thing that could make him happy. He would never be able to thank her enough for being so beautifully stubborn to deal with his conflicting emotions.

She was the one person worth living for.

He almost lost her before. It took a crazy person in a mental institution to make him realize he could lose her in more ways than one. The panic that washed over him when he saw her held hostage with a shiv pressed against her neck was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. Time couldn't go fast enough and every second ticked by with agonizing deliberation. When she finally was freed of her captor, he wanted nothing more than to welcome her into his arms. But he didn't. Instead, the best he could do was watch her run to the nearest window and offer a sympathetic ear.

But as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. The friendship he once thought he effectively ruined, started to mend itself. She confided in him things nobody else knew and he held those moments close to his heart. The secrets of her childhood would be a bond between them until the day he died.

The only time he managed to pull a sneak move in their game was after Nick's abduction. Showing up to her apartment with a bagful of Chinese take-out and later falling into her bed were moves even he didn't foresee. It was the only advantage he ever had in their game.

Grissom shifted again, the hard couches offered little support and the muscles in his neck were starting to rebel against him. Rolling his neck, he tried to work out the kinks but with no avail. He stood then and ignoring Catherine's incessant "Where are you going?", walked out of the waiting room.

Turning down the seemingly endless hallways, Grissom stopped in front of the giant glass window that separated the nursery from the rest of the hospital. Seven babies lay in their tiny bassinets, swaddled tightly. He found himself transfixed, unable to tear his eyes away from the tiny form in front of him.

Kids were never something he and Sara talked about. They both were still trying to figure out how to be in a relationship. Besides, he always figured himself too old to be a first time father and never really having a father left him clueless on how to even be one. And with Sara's familial history, she hadn't been comfortable with the idea either.

But now, right here, the idea of kids didn't seem so crazy. No, not so crazy at all.

Turning from the window, he saw the doctor heading towards him._ About damn time, _he thought, preparing himself for the worst.

"Mr. Grissom?"

Stupidly, he nodded.

"I'm Dr. Mathwig, if you'll come with me, I think there's someone you'd like to see."

A small "yes" fell from his lips, but fell silent in the space between him and the doctor. He followed the doctor's quick strides to the closed hospital room door.

Dr. Mathwig turned towards him. "Most of the anesthesia has worn off, but she's awake and resting. For now she's out of the woods, so to speak, but I'd like to monitor her more closely and keep her on bed rest if possible."

Grissom blew out a pent up sigh. "Thank you."

The white-coated man nodded. "You did the right thing, Mr. Grissom, bringing her in. You saved both their lives." With a smile, he turned from him and continued down the hallway.

Opening the door, he found Sara resting quietly, her eyes closed. Grissom cleared his throat as softly as he could and stepped in. Instantly, her eyes were open and a small smile appeared on her face.

Without a word, she motioned to the side of the bed, patting the sheets near her hip. Grissom obliged and lay in the bed so he could face her. His hand sought out her hand and once found, he sighed and kissed her temple.

"Hi." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"I love you."

She blinked up at him and smiled. "I know, Gil. I love you, too."

"I always have. I'm just not good at showing you how I feel. I never have been."

Sara's smile started to fall and she sat up a little higher. A nervous laugh bubbled up from her. "Where's all this coming from?"

"This is the second time I almost lost you—really lost you. And I can't…I don't want," he stopped and let out a sigh. "You need to know how much you mean to me."

The events of last year still weighed heavily on his mind. Guilt still gripped at him and part of him thought he would always feel responsible for not keeping her safe. He'd never felt panic like that before. He never hated, loathed, someone like that before. He never felt so empty at the prospect of death before.

He should have been the one under that car.

Once she came home, he spent every waking moment making sure she was safe. He knew she was a strong willed woman, but he could help but think of how close to death she had been. Every day he tried to show her just how much she meant to him. To make up for the fact she had been hurt.

The warmth of her hand upon his cheek brought him back from his thoughts. "I'm still here. Always. And I knew, Gil. You may be a man of few words, but you told me other ways."

Grissom looked down at her. "I don't deserve you."

"Yes you do. Now, there's someone you need to meet."

Slowly, Sara pushed her self up and pulled something over to the side of the bed. Grissom blinked in surprise at the small bassinet now standing at the Sara's side of the bed. He watched in awe as Sara carefully cradled the baby in her arms and turned back to him with a smile.

"I thought they just were going to stop the bleeding. I can't believe…" he trailed off as Sara turned to look at him.

"There was no time to tell you; everything was moving too quick. I was bleeding too heavily and the only way to stop the bleeding was to have the baby. Sometimes they don't follow the rules and do it their own way—I guess she's like her mother in that respect. Just couldn't wait that extra month. But we're okay, Gil."

He felt the sting of tears at the back of his eyes. He was someone's father, dad, the one who was supposed to answer life's questions and make everything okay. This was a whole new chess game.

Grissom leaned forward and rested his forehead against her own. He kissed her then, ignoring her complaints of bad breath; he didn't care. They stayed like that while he looked down at the little girl sleeping in her mother's arms. Everything about her tiny, scrunched up face was Sara.

"She looks like you," Grissom whispered.

"Nah, she's got your nose. And your eyes, wait until you see her eyes. I hope they stay that blue."

"I want to hold her."

Sara smiled at him and transferred the still sleeping baby into his arms. Grissom held his breath until she was safely in his arms and slowly let it out. Yawning, the baby blinked her eyes a few times, taking her first blurry look at her dad.

Suddenly, sitting here holding his tiny infant daughter in his arms, he realized he'd hit the bottom of the rabbit hole. Both he and Sara had stopped long enough to catch each other and now they both—well, the three of them—rested comfortably at the bottom. No longer would he need to stay in a place of mystery and uncertainty. He had obtained a backwards sense of perfection he didn't even know he was looking for.

A family.


End file.
